1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink cartridge suitable for an ink-jet printing apparatus in which an ink-jet print head is provided to a reciprocating carriage and an ink cartridge is detachably mounted on the carriage, and more particularly relates to an ink cartridge provided with a memory device such as a semiconductor chip storing thereon information related to the ink cartridge or ink contained in the ink cartridge.
2. Related Art
An ink-jet printing apparatus with a print head generates a driving signal in accordance with print data and applies the signal to a pressure generating section such as a piezoelectric vibrator and a heating section, to pressure ink within a pressure generating chamber and eject ink droplets from nozzle apertures formed in the print head. The ink-jet printing apparatus of this type is also provided with an ink cartridge for supplying ink to the print head.
As the printing quality is determined by the resolution of a print head and, in addition, greatly depends upon the viscosity of ink, a condition of bleeding on a recording medium and the like, the characteristics of ink and a driving signal applied to the print head are improved to enhance the quality of printing. Further, the cycle of ink-missing ejection has been improved to prevent the nozzle apertures from being clogged, and also the maintenance conditions such as forced ejection of ink droplets into a cap of a cleaning mechanism has been improved.
Therefore, there has often been proposed a semiconductor memory device storing data related to ink or ink cartridge which is provided to an ink cartridge, so that the data is read from the memory device by a printing apparatus, printing is executed under an optimum condition, or data related to a state in which the ink cartridge is used is stored in the semiconductor memory device. For example, as disclosed in Japanese published unexamined patent application No. Hei. 3-67657, there has been proposed an ink cartridge wherein a semiconductor memory chip is mounted on an upper surface of a container composing the ink cartridge so that data can be read out by a printing apparatus via a substrate. Further, an ink cartridge is known wherein a recessed portion is formed in the ink cartridge and a semiconductor memory chip is fitted in the recessed portion so that data can be read out.
However, as the above semiconductor memory chip is mounted in a state in which it is always left exposed, there is a problem that users may readily come to touch the semiconductor memory chip with their fingers, and the memory chip may be broken or lost due to static electricity or other factors. If such happens, the printing apparatus would not read out information stored on the semiconductor memory chip for proper printing.
According to the conventional ink cartridge with a semiconductor memory device, it is required to provide an extra mechanism for fixing the semiconductor memory device to an ink cartridge which causes another problem of rising up the manufacturing cost and also the manufacturing process becomes complicated.